Season 05 - Episode 27

‘like this then’

Ty is excited.

And tired and frightened and a little bit sad, but mostly just excited.

This room is the end of the route.

His little metal friend is skittering about excitedly, dashing from one corner to another, trying to explore everything at once. The room is small and square and has only one door, the one through which Ty has just stepped.

A few pieces of ancient furniture sag sadly, a cupboard, a table, a chair and everything is thick with dust. Under the dust but on top of the table are some strange objects Ty doesn't recognise.

He crosses the room to inspect them and that's when he notices the smell. Not bad but strange, unlike anything he's ever smelled before. He tries to ignore it as he picks up the first object on the table.

The thing is made of two short, fat, metal cylinders, connected side by side in the middle by a stiff little hinge. The cylinders are both wider at one end and both ends house circles of glass. Ty raises the bizarre object to his face and puts the smaller glass disks to his eyes. All he sees inside are blurs however so he gives up and puts the thing back on the table.

The next object is all made of sticks. The longest stick has an end that curls around on itself to make what seems to be a handle. The rest of the sticks are all the same length and all joined at one end to the pointy end of the longer stick, making a long narrow cone. Fabric is stretched between the sticks so that when Ty pushes a little collar along the longest stick, all the other sticks fan out and stretch the fabric between them to make a kind of dome.

It's the weirdest thing he's ever seen and serves no purpose he can imagine so he puts it back next to the other weird thing and turns away from the table. His fear is pushing to the front now, there must be something more to find. All those people below are on their way here, what will they do to him if this is all that there is?

He looks about for his friend and for the first time notices the ladder. Painted the same colour as the wall and buried in dust and shadows, he hadn't noticed it at first. Now however, that gleaming red eye is slipping about all over it.

Ty crosses to the ladder and looks up. There is a hatch in the ceiling directly above. Yet another hatch, yet more climbing, even though his friend has told him, quite definitely, that this room is the end. Wherever it is they are going, it's up there, through that hatch.

Ty takes a breath and steps onto the ladder, climbing slow and careful. As he approaches the ceiling the smell grows stronger and he pauses to concentrate. It takes a few seconds for him to realise that it's not a smell at all but rather the absence of a smell.

As he hangs onto the dusty rungs, Ty closes his eyes. A gentle draft is flowing down from the hatch above, bathing him in this strange, odourless air. The air itself is cool and refreshing so that each lungful feels like two. He breathes it in deeply, greedily and feels almost lightheaded, it is just so sweet and so pure.

He climbs a few more rungs and now the hatch is in reach and for the first time he notices the line. A thin glowing line of yellowy white outlines the hatch, broken only by the hinges and handle. Blinking at it, Ty realises that above the hatch is an incredibly bright light, pushing into and spilling through the gaps.

Ty reaches up and places his hand on the hatch then draws it away in surprise. Unlike the cold, dusty ladder, the hatch itself is warm. It is not hot, just very gently warm, almost the same temperature as his skin. He wonders what kind of lamp could possibly be so large and so powerful that it can warm a big heavy piece of metal like this.

Then he hears the sounds. Piping, tweeting sounds, like music only more chaotic. He listens to the endlessly changing sounds coming from beyond the hatch open mouthed. The more he listens, the more he is convinced they are the sounds of living things.

They remind him vaguely of the sounds the flitty birds in the park used to make only here there is so much more depth and variety. Then he hears more sounds, coming from below, the sounds of people, closing in, catching up.

Ty opens the hatch.

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